Longinus  Cage of Angel
by Six-string Samurai
Summary: The battle for humanity is almost over, but through the settling dust, an age old enemy is revealed...
1. Prologue

Ranma and Co. is Copyright Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan, Inc. 1993

Ranma 1/2 is a trademark of Viz Communications, Inc.

A Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction/"Longinus" A Kitamura Ryuhei film

Longinus – Cage of Angel by S³

Prologue

It was the third of long nights standing vigil, and the young nurse feared she was reaching her limit. With the closing of the hospital days prior, she'd had little to occupy her time, other than seeing to the doctor's comfort in his final hours. The way things looked, she wouldn't have too much longer in his service.

"Doctor, is there anything I can get you?"

The man in question lay in a fevered sprawl on one of the few clean beds. His head lolled toward the nurse's voice, but no words escaped. He no longer had the energy for even simple words.

Though saddened by his deteriorating condition, the brunette showed no outward sign other than mild fatigue. The doctor was only a few years older than she, but he had been her mentor, and friend, for a long time. He would never see anything but a smiling face from her, especially now. She respected him too much to let his final moments be burdened by the ache in her chest.

Not much later, the nurse was free to shed her tears. Closing the doctor's lifeless eyes, she said her farewells before covering his face respectfully.

"Goodbye, Dr. Tofu."

---

The nurse gathered what supplies she would be taking, and made one final round of the three story clinic. The place was still in decent shape, considering the damage that the surrouding buildings had incurred. It had power and water, and the structure was sound.

While the area was mostly uninhabited now, thanks to the destruction, there were a few families around. As well as the few stragglers that passed through the area, but even those occurences were lessening. While there were bound to be those in need of medical attention, anything serious would likely be beyond the capabilities of the lone nurse. She might have decided to stay under other circumstances, but without the doctor around, it felt like a lost cause.

Besides, the clinic had been closed several days prior to the doctor's injury. It was a simple matter really. They'd almost run out of food, and any nearby convenience stores had long since been ransacked. Even if she wanted to stay in the relative comfort of the clinic, the situation required that she make a trip downtown.

Once she finished making sure the medicine and other medical supplies were safely locked away, the nurse went to the front to lock up.

She was just about to unbolt the doors, when several voices caught her attention from outside. Whoever they were, they were right out front. She strained, trying to make out what they were saying. Before Tofu's passing, she might have opened the door right away, but experience was a harsh teacher. Not all that came calling were in need of healing.

"This the place," a gruff voiced asked beyond the wooden door.

"Yeah, think so. I swear I saw lights inside last night." A second voice, much more subdued, answered."

"Good. If that sign's right, we got ourselves a place to hole up. Course, we'll have to clear out the trash first."

"Think its squatters?"

"Probably. You saw those homes back there. There's no way folks are still around here. Some unlucky bastard found himself a nice place to crash. We're just gonna thank 'em for housesittin'."

Behind the door, Kasumi's eyes widened. She needed to get out, before she was found. There was no telling what they'd do to her if they caught her.

---

"One--Two-- Three," the male voices shouted from just outside.

Kasumi scrambled backward as door burst open, scattering bits of wood and one of the hinges. She landed on her rear, having tripped herself up in the rush to flee.

Weak sunlight streamed in through the doorway, outlining the two figures that'd smashed their way into the clinic. For a moment, no one moved. The two looked just as surprised as Kasumi felt, but there was a slight difference, as she found herself staring up at the two handguns suddenly focused on her.

The situation wasn't wholly unexpected, but the guns were making her extremely nervous. It wasn't helping that she'd fallen in what felt like a compromising position, though the other two didn't quite seem to notice.

"Can I help you?" The words slipped from her lips before she could stop herself.

The taller of the two men moved toward the fallen nurse, the earlier surprise replaced by a mask of indifference.

---

A few blocks from Tofu's clinic, a girl in tattered clothing was running for her life.

She passed by a dozen dilapidated buildings, keeping close to the high brick wall that separated the residences from the street. Her staccato footfalls were punctuated every so often as she risked small glances over her shoulder. While she could no longer see her pursuer, there was no doubt in her mind that she was still being followed. After all, she was wounded, and leaving a clear enough trail.

Clutching her right arm, the girl kept moving. The sun was rising over the tops of the houses, and the light spurred her on.

In the distance, a gunshot rang out.

---

Kasumi lowered her hands from her ears as the gunfire ceased.

"What the hell was that," the shorter of Kasumi's apparent captors exclaimed as the two struggled to get the door back into its frame.

"Shit, this isn't going to work," the other man cast around for anything close by that might bolster the door. "Find something we can use! I'll hold the door in case that thing comes sniffing around again." He spared a glance for the woman attempting to get to her feet. If he had to go by appearance alone, she wasn't just some vagrant that had decided to hole up in the place. "Hey, you work here?"

Kasumi nodded absently, her attention now only partly on the intruders. The two men had ceased to be the greatest threat, but since she didn't know what they intended, she could hardly dismiss their presence, not after they'd forced their way in. She'd have to wait until it was safer to see what their intentions truly were.

"Well, make yourself useful. Help me with this damn door."

For now, they were the lesser of two evils. That _thing_ hadn't been human, and it most certainly hadn't been friendly either. Kasumi had caught its stare, just for a moment when it rose up in the doorway, behind the men, and had been shaken right to the core of her being. Its eyes had been filled with powerful emotions. Hunger, rage, and strangest of all, promise. Of what, she couldn't say as the encounter had been only the barest of moments. The young nurse knew one thing for sure. She didn't want it to have another chance at her.

"The bookshelves-- They're heavy enough, probably," Kasumi said, having decided. After all, the men wouldn't be able to do much of anything, if they were sufficiently occupied. "And, the backyard. If it comes around through the alley," Kasumi trailed off, recalling her earlier plan to escape out that way. She dismissed it almost immediately. There was no telling how safe it was outside. If there were more of those, things, it was doubtful that she'd get anywhere near downtown, let alone out of the neighborhood.

---


	2. An unexpected arrival

Longinus: Cage of Angel

Chapter 1

Nabiki stared at the building from across the road. She could just make out the sign in the stale morning light. "Acupressure, Acupuncture, Moxibustion," she mouthed the words; licking her dry lips and suppressing a groan as the pain in her arm flare up again. She didn't know if it was broken or not, but it hurt like hell. She'd been running for who knows how long, just trying to get away from those damned things she'd seen prowling the street around her apartment uptown. It'd been a long time since she'd seen her sisters, either of them, and they hadn't exactly parted on good terms either. But, she hadn't known where else to go. Most of the city had been attempting to evacuate just prior to the first attack, and Nabiki had been caught downtown in the worst of it. Just making it back to her apartment in one piece had been a small miracle.

The phones were down, the satellites; it was like a communications blackout. That had only made the panic worse on the streets, so she'd holed up in her apartment with nowhere else to go, and no one who knew what was really going on anymore. The neighbors on both sides of her had already made it out of the city, as had most of the rest of the mansion, judging by the hastily scrawled notes she found on their doors, but one or two of the residents had stayed. Like the young Tendou, they'd had nowhere else to go outside the city.

Initially, she'd proposed that they all pool together, and scrape what little resources they had into one apartment, and it had seemed like a good idea in theory. But the other two happened to be a couple a little younger than Nabiki herself, and in the end they valued their newfound privacy over the companionship and foodstuffs that Nabiki was offering to share, if they would help her keep watch on the rest of the block.

She'd been worried, since after the first attack, the city had been silent for a few days, but then one night, _they'd_ started showing up. It had been easy to mistake them as derelicts, or wounded survivors of the bombings, but it wasn't a mistake Nabiki would be making twice. Neither would her former downstairs neighbors, who'd made the grievous error of leaving their door unlocked one night. The screams had woken Nabiki, and probably saved her life, giving her a head start on getting out of that part of the city.

Originally, she'd planned on heading to her father's place, but the idea of meeting up with her younger sister, even in a time of need, was too much to bear, not with an alternative. And the more pressing matter of her mounting injuries sealed the deal. Once she made it into the Nerima ward, she'd headed straight for her older sister's workplace, the Ono Clinic.

Now that it was so close, she was beginning to rethink her choice; Kasumi wouldn't try and turn her away, would she? Nabiki was sure the doctor would fix her arm, but after that, it would be too uncomfortable to stay in the same place as her elder sister. Kasumi would make sure of that and in the most nonchalant, subtle way possible. Nabiki frowned in confusion. But in the end the throbbing hot sensation tearing at the insides of her arm won out, making the decision for her.

--

"Hey, hold your end up you idiot, we gotta get this crap nailed on good," Kenji scowled at his partner.

"What does it look like I'm doing? Think I want that freaking thing just waltzing right in?" Akira took a nail out from between his lips and held it up to the piece of cabinet shelving they were using to board up the windows. They'd already got most of the first floor taken care of, and this was the last in the rear of the clinic.

"Yeah, well I'm getting all antsy about the upstairs. You saw how high some of those little buggers can jump," he handed his partner the hammer, and pressed against the board, keeping it flush with the window frame. "Did you catch where that nurse went? I thought she'd be back by now with more wood. We're running out of things to use."

The spiky haired Akira just shrugged as he hammered the board in place. He shot a look over his shoulder at the little pile of scraps they'd gathered to use as material for securing the doors and windows of the two story clinic. Kenji was right, there was barely enough to cover one of the upstairs windows. "Lady, uh, miss?" Akira shouted, and then turned to the taller man, "Crap, I forgot her name, Tanibata, or Tachikoma, Tan-something."

"It was Tendou, come on, not even a kid could forget one so easy."

Akira scowled, "Whatever." "Ms. Tendou, you still with us," he yelled back into the recesses of the clinic proper.

When there was no immediate reply, the two got a little worried. "Go take a look and see what's taking her. I don't like the idea of a girl running loose, especially in that short little getup she's wearing," Akira jerked his chin at his partner, tossing him one of the handguns they'd appropriated off a dead patrol officer.

Kenji grabbed the gun, shaking his head. "All right, Mr. leader. And what exactly is stopping you from doing the dirty work yourself?"

"Easy, I'm going upstairs to check on the rooms. Someone trust worthy's gotta do it," the spiky-haired young man remarked with a smirk.

"Mmm hm. And it's not because you're scared of needles right," the taller man jibed.

Akira socked him in the arm, scowling. "Shut up, I knew I should have never told you that story."

"Hah, it's too late to take it back now, in fact, maybe I should just share it with Ms. Tendou, I'm sure she'd get a real good kick out of it."

Kenji ribbed his friend, at least until he saw the other man reaching for the shotgun on the counter. "Right, I think I'll keep it to myself, for now," he chuckled in parting. "Man, you really need to lighten up. Can't even take a joke."

"Jerk," Akira muttered, taking the shotgun and heading toward the stairs at the back of the clinic.

--

In the basement, Kasumi was sitting quietly next to the body of her departed friend and mentor, the late Doctor Ono Tofu. She offered up a prayer for his soul to find peace in the next life, and that he would be granted salvation.

Bowing her head, she excused herself and rose from the seat, wiping an unbidden tear from her eyes. The whole situation was just too much for her to handle alone. She'd thought she could do it, but only a day without the Doctor's presence and she was starting to fall apart all over again. She could hear the men upstairs working, and their subsequent shouts, calling out her name.

But, all she wanted to do was rest. She'd been foolish to think that she'd be able to get downtown. Now she knew better. All it had taken was one good look at what prowled the streets to shake her resolve to the core, and it hadn't helped that strangers had been ordering her to dismantle the good doctor's clinic. Their reasons made sense but she didn't like it. It felt like she was betraying part of herself, even if rationally, she knew that wasn't the truth at all.

Kasumi didn't even have the time to sort out her feelings, before the sound of footsteps on the wooden basement stairs echoed down to her.

"Ms. Tendou? You still down there?"

It was the voice of the tall intruder, easy enough for her to recognize since the two men were as different as night and day in the way they looked, and spoke, though they both carried themselves in a manner that she found all too familiar after living for so long around martial artists. Both men were fighters, even if they bore firearms. She supposed with the things out in the city, traditional weapons might not be enough anymore.

"Ms. Tendou?"

"Y-yes, I am here," she dried her eyes, and looked around for where she'd placed the supplies she was gathering earlier.

Kenji walked into the small circle of light cast by the lone lamp mounted above the chest height table in the middle of the room. A white sheet covered the telltale lump atop the table. "Is that?"

"Yes, please, let us return upstairs now. I've found the things you requested," the nurse was suddenly businesslike, with no hint of her earlier distress present on her face. In her arms were bundles of medical supplies and a dozen small white shelves. They would have to be enough, because they were the last of the shelves she was able to take down by hand.

As the two ascended the stairs, the front door jerked with the force of the heavy pounding it was suddenly bombarded with. They'd gotten the door back on its hinges, and reinforced it with an empty book shelf, but even still it was starting to creak alarmingly.

Kenji drew his sidearm, gently pushing the nurse behind him as he approached the door.

"Is it that thing? Has it come back?" Kasumi grabbed onto the tall man's shoulder, tightening her fist in the material of his vest.

From the other side of the door came frantic shouting and the pounding increased. "Gods! Kasumi! Doctor Ono, if you're there open the damn door! Hurry, they're almost here! Let me in!"

Kasumi almost tore Kenji's vest when she heard the cries. "I know that voice--," she trailed off. There was no way her sister would be this far from her home. And to come to Kasumi off all people.

"Kasumi! Let me in damn you! I'm not going to die out here, not in this damn town! Open the--," Nabiki yelped in pain as the door whipped open beneath the weight she was pressing against it and a hand shot out from the inside of the clinic, dragging her into the building in a vise-like grip. The middle Tendou nearly passed out from the pain of being almost lifted off her feet by her injured arm. It occurred to her as the pain nearly made her retch, that if her arm hadn't been broken before, it probably was now.

As the days of fatigue and the fresh flowers of pain blooming in her body overtook her, she collapsed to the ground, the last thing she heard was a flurry of motion and the sound of something heavy being scooted across the wooden floor. Just like that, she was reunited with one of her estranged sisters. Nabiki welcomed the blackness that took her in its bosom. Maybe she could sleep forever and spare herself the agony of dealing with the devil in white that was her older sister.


	3. What the day brings part 1

Longinus: Cage of Angel

Chapter 2a

In such a desolate neighborhood, the day was bound to be quiet. It was easy enough to see that it hadn't always been the case. The few that had chosen to stay, had learned to keep of the streets and out of sight. Daytime was only slightly less risky, and night had become anathema to the remaining residents.

Regardless, the rays of the dawning sun soon beat back the night once more, catching two figures standing in the middle of a main road running through the ward.

"You still sure this is the place," the shorter of the two peered up and down the street, eying the abandoned homes and boarded up shops with a dismissive glance. "Looks pretty empty to me. I mean, who'd be dumb enough to stick around here?"

"Things aren't always as they appear," the older one too, kept one eye on the heavier shadows at the corners of the buildings nearby. "Besides, it appears I still have much to teach you in the ways of duty and honor. A man's word is worth its weight in gold. You'd do well to remember that," so saying, the gruff looking man nodded to himself, and started walking in a particular direction.

"Gold, huh. Sounds like you stole that one too," the younger man scratched idly at the week's growth of stubble on his chin, "Probably got it all ass backwards." He adjusted the strap of the pack he was shouldering before following after the other. "You're the last person I want to hear preach about that crap."

The older one in the lead shook his head, "Twenty years, I've raised you, boy. Twenty years of your griping and complaining. If this were two months ago, I'd remind you that while you think you've reached the pedestal where I stand, you're still grasping at the pebbles by my feet," he grumbled, clenching an impotent fist to his side. In better days, he would have made good on his threat. But no longer. Even he understood the need to conserve their strength. This was the time of the true art, when each fight could be their last.

The very thought was nearly enough to bring tears to his eyes. He couldn't have planned for a better way to truly test the boy. No, this was beyond the fate that he'd imagined so long ago, back when he'd made the promise. A promise he'd kept in full, for the most part. He could safely say that he'd done the best he could, given the time and tools he'd had to work with.

No matter what he told the boy, he was proud of the end result. The boy's training was all but complete, though there were still a few things he had yet to learn. Those would come later, given the opportunity. In these dark days, it was harder to predict what each new morning would bring, provided they lived through the night.

"Yeah, yeah, old man. Let's just get this over with," he squinted, scanning the rooftops lining the street. The damn things seemed to like high places just as much as alleyways. Just because the sun was out, didn't mean it was any safer. The light made them slower, but if there was food, they would come just the same. "You still haven't told me what's so important about this Tendou guy, that we're risking our necks in a city?"

Up ahead, the larger man slowed his brisk pace, but only marginally. "Son, he's someone that I owe a debt to, and now seems as good as any time to pay it back," he looked up at the roofs the boy was scanning, the sunlight glinting off his glasses. "In fact, it might just be the last chance I've got to do so."

"And you're sure he's still around? I mean, the house was empty when we went back home, Mom wasn't," he trailed off when his father looked back at him. It was a glare that he didn't often see, and meant that it was better if he kept his trap shut for a bit. The last time, well it had been a while actually, but some memories were fresh no matter how long had passed. When he didn't continue, the look vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and his father turned his attention back to watching the road ahead.

Well, either way, he was dubious of his father's current plan, whatever it was. Like he'd said, running around the city was dangerous at best, and a death wish any time after the sun fell below the skyline. Besides, as he'd been about to point out, anyone with common sense had left the area weeks ago. As his mother had done, probably.

They'd made the trek back home shortly after the outbreak two months ago. It had been hell, even for two accomplished martial artists, such as themselves. In the beginning, the greater Tokyo area had been crawling with the damn things. It wasn't really a whole lot better now, but with most of the survivors having been evacuated by the JSDF early on, there wasn't as much reason for the things to be quite so, active.

It was lucky, they'd thought, to have been out of the country at the time it first started. But, once his father had gotten word of the troubles back home, he cut short their trip, and decided to try and return to his wife, whom neither of them had seen in nearly five years. However, the two of them had returned to find an empty neighborhood, and more importantly, an empty house. There had been nothing to say whether she was alive or dead.

So, father and son of the Saotome family, had spent the past month searching for a woman of whom they had no idea where she might be. Most of the government run shelters, had either been overrun or unused. Those who had been able, had fled as far from the cities as possible, if not the country altogether.

Still, they searched, because they had nothing left to go on. They'd run across several scattered groups of people, mostly spread out into the mountains, outside the Kanto plains. People that were all too willing to barter a few supplies in exchange for safety. It was hard work, dangerous, but not impossible. The damn creatures were sparse in the countryside, and much easier to handle one on one. It was in the cities, where they mostly hunted in packs, making an encounter far more deadly.

And now, his father was throwing far too much caution to the wind, in an effort that he couldn't, or wouldn't explain to his son. It was both stupid and foolhardy, but then again, it wasn't too much of a surprise, since those traits seemed to define Genma Saotome.


End file.
